


This is how we met:

by Sachete



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble Collection, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 20:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5884621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sachete/pseuds/Sachete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here are five stories about how they could have met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was dark out, but in the winter that’s meaningless. Precisely, it was eight-twelve in the evening and the snow was falling in big clumps, blinking in and out of reality as it fell through pools of streetlight. I was walking back to my dorm with coffee still hot in my throat, giving the quad and all of the students throwing snowballs there a wide berth, and you were halfway up a crape myrtle, shaking snow-covered branches onto unsuspecting passerby.

I paused on the icy sidewalk and watched you do this four times before I waddled over in my snow boots that still weren’t broken in yet and gave you what I hope was a disapproving look, but you just grinned and told me to join you. I told you I’m not six, thanks, and you said Me neither. But if anything, we have even more a right to do this now that we’re adults.

I told you I never learned how to climb a tree, and you asked me what my name was. Karkat. That’s a funny name. Dave. That’s a boring name. You just grinned again and dropped out of the tree, nearly landing on your face but recovering just in time. Grace, I said, or something similarly sarcastic, and you asked me which building I lived in, and I let you walk with me through the student center, and we only paused for thirty minutes to warm up on a bench in front of the post office before you had to leave. See ya around, you said, and my cold fingers fumbled to put away the scrap of paper you gave me with your number scrawled on it. I waved, but you were already heading home and didn’t notice.


	2. Chapter 2

I was working at a Guitar Center in the afternoons to earn extra spending money for college. You had a free period at the end of each day and walked over from the high school to fiddle with the guitars, but you never bought anything. You leafed through lesson books and taught yourself how to play on the cheapest acoustic we sell. I watched you learn over the months, listened to you curse when the skin of your fingertips broke and bled on the shiny strings and frets, and you looked up to me for help but I shook my head and told you to keep going. You’re doing well. You can have band-aids after. You have to get your fingers tougher. Nevermind that the guitar had blood all over it now. Nobody ever wanted the display model anyway.

Your fingertips got tougher and your nails on one hand got longer, and I watched the calendar and listened to you grumble about school and graduation between songs. Yeah, full songs. Not just repeating the same chords over and over like any loser can do, either, but real songs with rhythm and picking and complicated fretwork. You were getting really good. Good enough for me to use my employee discount a week before graduation and put a bright red bow and a congratulations card on the guitar, your guitar with your literal blood sweat and tears on it, and when you came in that afternoon, you took one look at the guitar and one look at me before I tried to say something like happy graduation, but only half of it left my mouth because I had an armful of you in no time flat, and you were sobbing gross happy tears into my shirt. I told you to make the most of it, bro. I wanna see your name in lights.


	3. Chapter 3

You were helping your dad run a trinket shop by the beach called the Crab Shack even though the crab fishing here died out twenty years ago, and I spent all my time in there because I started to _look_ like a boiled crab if I so much as thought about the sun for too long, let alone join my parents in their fun on the beach. And so inevitably we started talking when I hung out with you in the merciful air conditioning and shade, and we chatted for hours upon hours over the course of the week about what assholes my parents were for dragging me on their vacation that only caused me pain, and how all of the trinkets in your store were cheap shit except for the ice cream which was homemade, and you gave me a free scoop every day when your dad wasn’t looking. What’s that, Mister Vantas? Yes, of course I paid for this. Your son certainly dips an excellent scoop of ice cream. Mmm-mm.

And on the last day, I kissed you on the cheek in a corner between the clam shell mobiles and the swim trunks, and you pulled me back to kiss my mouth, and since I was expecting you to push me away or say no homo or something, I got scared and almost forgot to press my cell number into your hand before muttering some sort of goodbye and running out like a flustered schoolgirl, knocking over a little mermaid statue in the process, and my face felt hotter than the cancerous sun.


	4. Chapter 4

I worked at Which Wich and you always scribbled curse words and dicks in red Sharpie on the name line of the paper bag and I always had to give you your turkey on wheat personally so I wouldn’t get in trouble with my boss. You flirted with me when I got to your table and one time you scribbled your phone number in red Sharpie on the name line of the paper bag but I ignored it.


	5. Chapter 5

It turns out that buses from two different high schools ran through your neighborhood ten minutes apart, and on the first day of school you got on the wrong one and sat next to me and introduced yourself real confident-like and we shot the breeze for the whole bus ride until we pulled into the wrong school parking lot and you started freaking out.

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of five short works. Originally posted on my [Tumblr.](http://sachete.tumblr.com)


End file.
